e.tv only mobile TV licence winner, as other bidders fail on technicalities

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has awarded domestic terrestrial TV broadcaster e.tv a licence to provide broadcast mobile TV, but disqualified all three other bidders, reports Broadband TV News. Two bids were rejected due to mistakes in their applications: Multichoice Africa’s submission was late whilst Super5Media simply failed to bind all copies of its papers. Meanwhile, an application from The Mobile TV Consortium was deemed ineligible as it does not currently hold a broadcast licence, a pre-requisite for a mobile TV concession. MultiChoice has been piloting a mobile TV service in collaboration with South African cellco MTN for the past few years.